For general managers, NHL draft weekend involves many moving pieces

NEW YORK — Anything can happen for the Ottawa Senators in the city that never sleeps.

Senators general manager Bryan Murray says the organization is “open-minded” about any and all possibilities leading up to Sunday’s NHL draft across the Hudson River in New Jersey.

The Senators could move up from their current 17th overall selection in the first round. They could slide down. They could even go without a first-round selection altogether, if, Murray says, there was “a good player that somebody wanted to give me.”

While Murray has already worked the phones to see what offers are out there, the discussions will start heating up in the suites of Manhattan hotels Friday, pick up more steam Saturday and will hit a fever pitch Sunday morning and early afternoon, leading up to the start of the 3 p.m. draft.

After teams start making picks, a new round of feverish trade talks will begin on the draft floor.

At this point, Murray acknowledges there have been “no legitimate” offers from teams willing to give up a top five or even a top 10 selection, understanding that it’s a difficult decision to deal away a player who could immediately step into a National Hockey League lineup.

Just the same, the day before the draft is usually filled with furious action as the league’s 30 teams set up in their respective war rooms, with general managers, a slew of scouts, and sometimes even hands-on owners gathering to explore every avenue before the big day. From a scouting perspective, it’s Super Bowl Sunday, the one day of the year for the NHL’s bird dogs to make their mark after spending months drinking bad coffee in rinks from Russia to Red Deer.

It can be crazy. Just ask Craig Button, the former general manager of the Calgary Flames who now serves as a draft analyst and hockey insider for TSN and the NHL Network.

“It’s a puzzle,” says Button. “And not one of those flat puzzles with the corners. It’s a 3-D puzzle, with stuff always moving around.”

Button says it’s a four-layered process for organizations, beginning with the hard grunt work of the scouts and the internal meetings, where all the strengths and weaknesses and of the top draft-eligible players are dissected in spirited discussions. In the Senators’ case, director of player personnel Pierre Dorion says the Senators have their own master list of the top 150 prospects. “And sometimes, there’s a healthy discussion between 78 and 79 because maybe that’s our third-round pick or that’s our fourth-round pick and we have to be prepared for that scenario,” Dorion says.

Armed with that information, the league’s general managers go into discussion mode with their peers, determining what is or isn’t on the table in trade talks, including the possibility of moving up or down in the first round of the draft.

The general manager then meets again with his own scouting staff, outlining the options available and trusting the opinions of his scouts in weighing whether there’s value in jumping up or sliding back.

Come draft day, “everything becomes fluid,” according to Button, and “you have to be prepared to make quick decisions” based on what’s happening.

“The (general) managers have to be ready to take direction from their scouting staff,” he said.

Button credits Murray for making countless shrewd draft day deals over the years.

When Murray was general manager of the Anaheim Ducks in 2003 and had already secured Ryan Getzlaf with the 19th overall pick, he listened to his staff and traded away his 36th and 54th choices for the 28th selection, owned by the Dallas Stars. The Ducks got what they wanted: Corey Perry. Dallas ended up with someone named Votjek Polak and B.J. Crombeen with those two picks.

Most Senators fans know what happened at the 2008 draft in Ottawa. The Senators acquired the 15th pick from the Nashville Predators, giving back their 19th choice and another third round pick so they wouldn’t lose the chance to pick a 150-pound defenceman named Erik Karlsson.

In 2010, the Senators were believed to have been interested in defenceman Derek Forbort with their 16th choice. Yet when the Los Angeles Kings chose Forbort with the 15th pick, Murray went back to the St. Louis Blues with a previously discussed trade option. The Senators dealt their 16th overall selection to St. Louis for the rights to defenceman David Rundblad. Rundblad was eventually used as part of the package to acquire Kyle Turris from the Phoenix Coyotes.

Rest assured, there will be action on the draft floor Sunday.

There has already been speculation about a potential blockbuster between the Colorado Avalanche and Calgary Flames. According to Hockey Night in Canada’s Elliotte Friedman, the Avalanche rejected a Flames offer of the sixth, 22nd and 28th selections for Colorado’s first overall choice.

A report out of Carolina suggested Hurricanes general manager Jim Rutherford could swap his fifth overall selection for two later draft picks if his targeted pick — rumoured to be Valeri Nichushkin — is one of the first four players taken.

Adding to the intrigue Sunday is the fact some quality NHL players could also be on the move as part of packages involving draft picks. Teams with salary cap issues could be forced to trade expensive players in order to get under the $63 million cap for the 2013-14 season.

Boston Bruins defenceman Andrew Ference told Boston reporters that “with the current cap, Peter (Chiarelli, Bruins general manager) is not going to be able to keep me.”

Could the Bruins get a first-round pick for Ference? A second-round choice? Welcome to the speculation game.

Now, let’s look at the Toronto Maple Leafs. If the Maple Leafs wanted to unload salary in order to re-sign centre Tyler Bozak or to pursue pending unrestricted free agent David Clarkson of the New Jersey Devils, centre Mikhail Grabovski could be on the block. Grabovski has four years and $22 million remaining on his contract.

“He’s a productive player and maybe he moves if there’s a high draft pick involved,” said Button. “Those types of players are the ones that might be in play.”

The Senators aren’t interested in Grabovski, but they will continue to push to climb up the draft list in order to select a player who has a shot at being NHL ready already.

Senators assistant general manager Tim Murray says it’s not likely to happen. But then again, the best offers are still to come.

“If we were picking in the top five or 10, it would be extremely hard for (Bryan Murray) to come to Pierre (Dorion) and I and say ‘we have a chance to move down, we can get a third line centre, we can get the 20th pick in the draft and we can get a second-round pick,’’” he said. “It sounds exciting, but if the whole amateur (scouting) staff is in the suite in New York and that comes up, the chances are we are going to say no.

“But in saying that, there are teams out there that need NHL players. There are teams out there that are very thin. We’re very, very deep, we have young depth players we’ve drafted and we’ve developed and we like them very much. We’re not shopping them, but if that scenario came up, we would feel comfortable helping another team out with NHL players.”

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